She said: ‘‘I’m quite surprised. I thought that it would take a little bit longer for him to get back into management.

‘‘I thought he might do the decent thing and go and play golf for a bit longer.

‘‘It’s been proved that he hasn’t quite got it tactically and that he hasn’t got any staying power so when the going gets tough at Man City I wonder how he will hack it.’’

Keegan left the Cottagers to manage England and Sweeney was still unhappy about the circumstances surrounding his departure.

‘‘He left in the middle of the season and I thought that was bad timing in the same way as he left England in the middle of the qualifying campaign,’’ she added.

‘‘Three weeks before he left I was interviewing him and he looked me in the eye and said ‘I’m not going to leave Fulham’.

‘‘People loved him because it’s rare a manager is that open it might be better if he was a bit more cagey.’’

But Sweeney also had better news for Man City fans as she praised Keegan’s motivational strengths and was convinced he could raise spirits in the Maine Road dressing room.

‘‘It sounds as though Manchester City have got all sorts of problems in terms of discipline from what I’ve heard but he will be great for the morale of the team and will stamp out any nonsense that has been going on.

‘‘In terms of fans, I think he was great. He’s very accessible and he always talks a good game in terms of what the fans wanted.

‘‘I thought he did really well at Fulham but he had huge resources and the only way was up.

‘‘I thought he did the right thing in sacking (Ray) Wilkins which I’m sure wasn’t an easy thing to do and he got us out of the Second Division so fair play to him.

‘‘Motivationally for the players he is brilliant and, from what I can gather, training is pretty good it’s just whether he can stick it out.’’